The New Year is the time when you’re supposed to reinvent yourself and feel like a new person. Well, I don’t.

January is ending, and with it, that new start that we all needed. Soon, we’ll be in February, which is still a good month, but the newness of the year is over. At some point, we’ll get used to writing 2018 as the date instead of 2017, people will break their resolutions and we’ll be back to waiting months for the new year. But relish the newness while it lasts, I say!

Here’s the thing though: I don’t feel new. It’s true that I didn’t do anything special to welcome in the new year, which would probably have helped me feel new (I instead binge watched something on Netflix until 11 p.m. and fell asleep, so a pretty underwhelming start to the new year for me). I also didn’t make any resolutions, already banking on the fact that I would probably break them sooner or later and instead decided to take on new goals slowly. I probably should feel a little new, considering that this year marks pretty big changes in my life, but I really, really don’t. Maybe it’ll all hit me later, but for now? It’s another year (this line of thinking can quickly turn into a discussion about the cycles of life, but I digress), and that’s okay for now.

A lot of this is because nothing in my life has really changed from a month ago. I’m still going to school, I still have the same friends and I still like the same things. I even binge watch the same shows on Netflix. Honestly, if you haven’t watched the entirety of Parks and Recreation more than once, you haven’t lived. But you don’t have to change right now. It’s not like the countdown to midnight on New Year’s Eve is also a magical countdown to your immediate new and better self. You and I are not going to suddenly be different because that’s not how life works.

January is the month when we all try to be new with our resolutions and our “new year, new me” phrase. Resolutions are still great, but don’t force yourself to be a new version of yourself, and anyone who seems like they are a new version of themselves probably isn’t telling you the whole story. Just do whatever you did last year, even if that is watching Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl for the seventh time (a quality movie, although many would disagree) and you choose when, and if, you want to feel new.

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Nina

About the Author
Nina is a writer. If she had extra hours in a day, she would try to create her own tea blends because her wish in life is to truly capture the essence of a fictional character in a tea.

About the Artist
Catt frequently draws hands and faces for GrrlPunch. She has to say hi to every dog she sees.